Fantastic Four Vol 1 126
Ben then recalls the group's most recent encounter with the Mole Man, wherein Sue had bought a bizarre metal home to the newly born Franklin in. They soon discovered it was the staging ground for the Mole Man's latest scheme to blind everyone on the surface. Force to fight the Mole Man without their eyesight, the Fantastic Four were still able to foil these plans, but the Mole Man had escaped and then destroyed the metal construct he had created. - . Inspired by this recollection, Ben believes that the Mole Man may have the key to curing Alicia of her blindness and decides to go and find their oldest foe. Because of the racket Ben has caused in making this revelation, the Baxter Building's land lord, Walter Collins comes to once more try and evict the Fantastic Four. Unwilling to stop, Ben abruptly hangs Collins from a coat rack and leaves, determined to cure Alicia of her affliction. | Appearing1 = Featured Characters: * ** ** ** ** Supporting Characters: * Antagonists: * Other Characters: * * * * Races and Species: * * Locations: * ** *** **** ***** **** *** *** ** * ** * Items: * Vehicles: * * | Notes = Continuity Notes * Reed's Thought-Projection Helmet was last used in . * Johnny is upset about his girlfriend Crystal whom he had been dating since . In she was forced to return to Attilan because her body was vulnerable to the pollution from the outside world. * This story retells the origin of the Fantastic Four as originally depicted in . Here are some facts about this recollection: ** Ben recalls that when he first mutated into the Thing he had dinosaur-like skin. As explained in , the Thing's body continued to mutate after his initial transformation. Ultimately he mutated into the rocky form he is most well known for in . Incidentally enough, even though he recalls this earlier form, all his recollections to the moments of his transformation depict the Thing in his most commonly known rocky form. This is likely an embellishment on the Thing's part in recollection. ** When recounting the conversation had by his comrades prior to the rocket flight, Ben is shocked when he recalls himself stating "It'll give them a head start cleanin' up Harlem and' Watts." The New York neighborhood of Harlem and the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts were predominantly African-American neighborhoods. When was first published in 1961, both areas were considered slums and crime infested. This lower standard of living and the high crime rate was attributed to the African-American population in a lot of cases on the generalized basis of their ethnicity. This sort of mentality is considered racist by today's standards, even back in 1972 when this recounting was published, this sort of statement was considered inappropriate. ** As Marvel has continued to publish stories eventually they had to institute a Sliding Timescale as a means of slowing down the advance of time during the Modern Age of Earth-616 over the length of publications in real time. This was to prevent aging their characters quickly as well as updating dated plot concepts, generalizing real life events or dates that are mentioned in various stories. When was published in 1961, Reed's spaceship is specifically referred to as a rocket, and his intentions for his mission is to beat the Soviet Union in the space race. Contextually, the story was published during the height of the US/Soviet Space Race, which saw both countries competing to see which one could develop manned space flights. Since then, many re-tellings of the Fantastic Four's origin have changed the details of Reed Richard's space flight, updating concepts so that they were not considered dated more modern readers. Such as: *** While Fantastic Four #1 implies that Reed was trying to reach the moon, states that he was attempting to reach Mars. Other stories since then have generalized where his destination was supposed to be. *** goes on to state that it was not just cosmic rays that caused the Fantastic Four to get their powers. It states that sunspot activity caused flaring through the Van Allen Belts causing an increase in neutron activity. The combination of this and the cosmic rays caused the mutations. ***20 years later in , the origin of the Fantastic Four was updated, it was stated that Reed's experimental ship was intended to travel to the edge of the solar system and while it needed a rocket booster to reach escape velocity from Earth's atmosphere it relied on a Star Drive to reach its destination. This tale also goes on to expand on how the quartet were mutated. *** published in 1991 states that the this "Star Drive" was intended to bring them into hyperspace in order to visit other solar systems. ** This is the first time it is referenced that Johnny took inspiration for his name from the original Android Human Torch of World War II. In this story, Johnny refers to the original Torch as a "comic book character". It has been established since that all the wartime comic books published by Timely Comics in the real world were also published in the Earth-616 universe. states that Timely Comics in the 1940s were commissioned by the US military as propaganda. Until the modern age of heroes the majority of the heroes from that era were believed to be myths or works of fiction. Johnny's reference to the original Torch being a comic book character is likely the case here. Johnny would eventually meet the original Human Torch in . * The Thing also recalls their most recent battle against the Mole Man in - . ** This recap of this battle edits out the fact that Crystal was with the team when Mole Man sprang his trap. Publication Notes * This issue was reprinted and marketed as a Power Records items. | Trivia = * The cover pays homage to the first issue of this series . | Recommended = | Links = }} References